The double betrayal - review of NHS SOS

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The left is forever being
condemned for talking of ‘betrayal’. But it is our responsibility to
describe accurately the lies and strategy that lie behind the dismemberment of
the NHS and the blatant disregard of the people’s wishes – it is a ‘double
betrayal’.

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NHS SOS, edited by Jacky Davis and Ray Tallis, published by Oneworld, £8.99

In NHS SOS, a group of
doctors, analysts and activists unsparingly document from different
perspectives the outright lies, rapacious self-interest and democratic
weaknesses that have led to the betrayal of the NHS. Professor Raymond Tallis
sums up their cumulative verdict in an introduction that is worth reading in
its own right:

“This book is about the betrayal of
the NHS – and of the people who depend on it for health and health care – by
politicians, journalists, the unions and, perhaps most culpably, the leaders of
the medical profession. Without the active collusion, passive acquiescence or
incompetence of all of these players it would hardly have been possible for the
Tories – who did not command a majority in Parliament – to have succeeded in
getting Andrew Lansley’s nightmare vision for the NHS enshrined in law”.

It is of course not only the
betrayal of the NHS that is at stake here. It is the flagrant betrayal of
the trust of the people of this country and the fundamental duty of governments
and the political class in a democracy to respect the wishes and will of the
population. In other words, the Health and Social Care Act 2012 was a
betrayal of democracy itself. This ought to be the framework within which the
government’s conduct is judged, whereas in our impoverished political discourse
the emphasis centres almost solely on the risks that the coalition government
has taken in deceiving and denying the public and whether or not they will get
away with it. (This normative framework would of course put Clegg’s
protestations about his commitment to democracy through the wringer.)

There can be no doubt that Cameron
and his party were very well aware that the people regarded the NHS with its
principles of egalitarian solidarity as the most treasured institution in Britain. Thus
Cameron went to great lengths to reassure the public that the NHS was safe in
his hands. The Tories would protect the NHS from cuts in its budget and
“stop the top-down reorganisations that have got in the way of patient
care”. This pledge was reaffirmed by Cameron and Clegg in the coalition
agreement. Meanwhile Lansley, who had been instructed to keep mum about
his plans before the election (see Nicholas Timmins’ account in Never Again),
began to unveil his stark privatising drive under cover of removing bureaucracy
from the NHS and putting general practitioners in charge.

The rest is history – real-life
“horrible history”, set out in detail in NHS SOS, of continuing
destruction of the health service, political chicanery, corruption, the
collusion of the Department of Health with the private sector, the meekness of
medicine’s professional bodies – especially the BMA, the indifference and
neglect of the media, the weakness of the Labour party’s response and worst of
all the failure of leading Lib Dems (Shirley Williams as well as Clegg) simply
TO STOP LANSLEY. Our state, political class, Parliament and major civil
society institutions are revealed as rotten to the core. There are few heroes
– Dr Clare Gerada at the Royal College of General Practitioners, Channel Four
News and the Guardian, several of NHS SOS’s authors and Lord
(David) Owen among them.

“Many people”, write Jacky Davis
and Tallis, in the sections on saving the NHS, “have woken up to the dangers of
the act and want to campaign”. I would like to share their confidence. I
fear that the great majority of people are maybe uneasy but essentially unaware
of the gradual dismemberment of the service; that they are reassured by the
continuing commitment to a NHS “free at the point of need”, compromised as it
is; and are being distracted and softened up by the government’s exploitation
of scandals and failures. Yet if there is an audience that will join in
campaigning at local and national level, in the ways that Davis and Tallis suggest, then surely it is
on OurNHS? So go to it –
and embrace David Owen and his bill to reinstate the Health Secretary’s duty to
provide a comprehensive and integrated National Health Service.